Jayme Stone is two-for-two at the Juno Awards, honoring the best of Canadian music each year.
Last night (3/29), he picked up his second award for the Best World Music Album of 2009 for his Africa To Appalachia project with Mansa Sissoko. The CD features Stone on banjo and Sissoko on the kora, a West African banjo-like instrument.
The Juno site describes the album as follows:
Jayme Stone went to Africa to explore a hide-covered instrument with an “extra” drone string called the banjo – it comes from West Africa. During his trip to Mali, Stone found himself sitting in with Toumani Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra in downtown Bamako, lost in circles of Wassoulou polyrhythms and in a rural Dogon village with no electricity where he discovered a banjo predecessor unheard of in the West. From Africa to Appalachia is his new collaborative album with griot singer and kora player Mansa Sissoko, featuring guests Bassekou Kouyate (ngoni) and Casey Driessen (fiddle).
Jayme tells us that they had a wonderful time at the awards show in Vancouver, and sent along a few words about accepting this award.
“Mansa and I sincerely want to thank all of you who are reading this for your enthusiasm, generosity and ongoing support of our music. We feel really fortunate to be spending our days making music and the encouragement from our wide circle of peers, colleagues, friends, family and fans makes it all possible.”
Stone won his first Juno in 2008 for his banjo CD, The Utmost, in the Instrumental Album Of The Year category.
Congratulations to Jayme and Mansa for this accomplishment – back-to-back is quite a feat for a banjo picker!
